Saint Rosha

The Armor of Saint Rosha is the prime artifact tied to Rosha: enchanted Starmetal full plate that can actively adapt to the user's needs. This armor is the symbol of the monarchy and religious leadership in the Holy State of Rukray, and is regularly worn by leaders to mark them as the heirs of Ishkibal and Rosha.

Rosha Alevad was born to a warrior father and a prestigious mother who was prominent in the women's societies of ancient Kenahai. Rosha was one of five siblings and had three older sisters, who she struggled to get along with. While they excelled at basketry, weaving, and water-cleansing rituals, Rosha did not. Without status in the women's societies, Rosha worried that her mother would marry her away to some other city's elites. Rosha was closer with her father and her brother, and she badgered them to teach her the arts of warfare and hunting. Rosha thrived in the men's societies and she proved a more natural fit there, so she was initiated as a half-boy hunter and warrior with her brother. This was an established process of the ancient people of Kenahai, especially for elite children of skill, so Rosha faced only some resistance in pursuing this path. Having more independence even led to her forming a stronger relationship with her mother and sisters, who she would become quite close with later in life.   Rosha's skill and popularity among the warriors led to her advancing quickly in Kenahai's martial fraternities. She was handpicked by the King of Kenahai, Sila Delaress (also known as Mazel in modern tellings), as his bodyguard and chief warrior for raiding. King Sila was a controversial and ambitious ruler who was toying with a conversion to Orthodox Desmianism and was engaging in large-scale slave raiding to sell to Desmia. Rosha loyally executed a number of these raids, though she was increasingly uneasy with Sila's warmongering. She would soon spend most of her time in the city anyways, as Sila became increasingly anxious about counter-attacks on his person. Rosha's half-boy half-girl gender also made the king more comfortable in keeping Rosha as the guard of his wives, after a prior bodyguard was suspected of royal adultery. Rosha used this proximity to power strategically and worked with her sisters and mother to be elected war-chief of the warrior's fraternities.   And then came the Plume of Liberty, a warship from Desmia captained by a foreign warlord named Ishkibal. Ishkibal settled into Kenahai and became a political power player. Rosha and others expected Ishkibal to be a violent maniac that wanted to slaughter all Dryads, as others of his realm were known to be. But she found that Ishkibal was unusually cautious and considerate and did not seem to want to "crusade" here after all. Instead, the foreign warlord built his own powerbase. King Sila, who has attracted Ishkibal here to use as a weapon, was most displeased. Rosha decided to support this foreign warlord instead of Sila, and joined Ishkibal's companions when Sila attempted a dramatic betrayal of Ishkibal. She then aided the foreigners in infiltrating and conquering Kenahai, and then pursuing King Sila to the nearby town of Koa.   After overthrowing Sila, Ishkibal crowned Rosha the Sovereign of Kenahai. The two married not long after. The God Halcyon blessed Rosha with a set of enchanted full-plate armor, known now as the Armor of Saint Rosha, which was quite unlike any armor known in those ancient times. This divine blessing consolidated Rosha's rule over Kenahai and the surrounding area, and even helped persuade the surrounding tribes to accept her as their overlord.   Rosha spent the rest of her days ruling as the Sovereign of Rukray while her husband Ishkibal acted as diplomat and priest. This marriage produced three children, which the sacred Ishkatar lineage is supposedly descended from. Upon death, she was welcomed by Ishkibal into Paradise as one of the first human souls saved from Purgatory.

Modern Ishkibites and historians alike tend to use uncomplicated feminine pronouns and terminology to refer to Saint Rosha, which is a modern imposition. In her own time, Rosha was known as Memiv ("half man" in the language of her people). While that terminology may sound insulting devoid of context, to her community it was a term of spiritual importance and respect: she had half a man's soul in her body, which meant that she could join men's fraternities and take jobs traditionally relegated to men. She took the title "sovereign of Kenahai" to represent her rulership as Queen-and-King-both, and ancient art of her as a monarch often depicts her with facial hair as a sign of her status.   Some modern people consider Rosha's 'Memiv' gender to be a matter of convenience: that she was a woman who so desperately wished to fight evil that she took the appearance and status of a man to learn to fight. This could be true but lacks much evidence- all contemporary accounts indicate that she was fairly invested and committed to her status as a Memiv. That said, she did violate traditional rules around Memiv Warriors in her later acts of taking a husband and having formally recognized heirs. She was hardly the only Memiv to bend or break those rules by the time that she did that, though, and it is notable that she insisted that she was still Memiv even after her divine blessing by Halcyon basically put her above traditional rules.   Rukrin traditions also encouraged Memivs in warrior fraternities to take wives like their fellows, and Rosha had numerous courtships with women prior to her marriage to Ishkibal. So from an "outside perspective" one could say that Rosha is a non-binary bisexual person; maybe the label "genderfluid woman" might come up or perhaps "trans man" or perhaps "queer nonbinary". Calling her just a "woman" is just as (if not more) inaccurate than calling her any of those labels, but Rosha's gender and sexuality can be most accurately understood in the context of her time and place.